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Prologue
The Crimson Avenger Lee Travis was a reporter in the late 30’s content with his life. When criminals dressed as aliens took advantage of the chaos caused by Orson Welles’ radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. They ransacked a charity event being held by Travis’ wealthy girlfriend, and he she was killed in the commotion. The criminals were caught and apprehended by the authorities the next day and jailed. Questioning why the criminals would be allowed to live while innocent people died, he went on a soul-searching journey around the world. In the Holy City of Nanda Parbat, Travis was given a vision by what he believed to be an angel of a perfect and invincible “super-man” who stood up selflessly against injustice and led a league of other vigilantes, and an entire age. Travis returned to his city inspired and donned a costume to fight against crime calling himself The Avenger, while the press and public called him the Crimson Avenger. The Crimson Avenger was the sole public vigilante in his time, and was never truly appreciated. Prior to rescuing a ship from terrorists before it explodes which would be his last endeavor, he rescued a young boy who had fallen out of the window of a tenement. His mother ran out for the child, and told him that she would tell her son of his savior as soon as he was old enough to understand. Crimson knew his time was running out and quickly told her that there was an age of people like him coming, and Lee Travis was only the first, to pass on the vision. The First Generation The JSA The Justice Society of America was a team of the US’ most prominent vigilantes in the 70’s and 80’s including Green Lantern, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Wildcat, Black Canary, Zatara, Atom, Equinox, and Hourman. They united based on the Crimson Avenger’s prophecy of an age of vigilantes and superheroes that would defend the Earth from internal and external threats. (You might notice a plot-hole here; it is to avoid spoilers in episode five.) The society remained active until Hourman failed to rescue a group of civilians stranded. In an ensuring explosion, the civilians were killed and Hourman was presumed to have died too, but his body was never found. The government accused Hourman for committing an act of terrorism. Though their relationship with the JSA was already shaky, this was the final straw and the Joint Congressional Un-American Activities Committee pressed for their secret identities and pledges of loyalty or be arrested and put on trial for treason. Instead, the remaining members of the society retired, with the exceptions of Wildcat and Zatara who continued to work undercover. Green Lantern Corps In the 10th century A.D., the first human was chosen to wield a Green Power ring, was a Chinese man named Jong Li. He saved his people from a tyrannical emperor, and became a valuable member of the Green Lantern Corps to the point where the Guardians of the Galaxy decided that his weakness to yellow was not needed. The unlimited power of the ring corrupted him; he turned on his people and tried to enslave them. The guardians defeated him by making his ring vulnerable to wood, the material most of Earth’s weapons were made of, and the Chinese peasants were able to vanquish him. His ring and lantern were burned. The connection to the Guardians was separated from the ring and lantern upon their destruction and became a separate entity, the Starheart. The Starheart prophesied to the victorious peasants and claimed that this was only the first of three appearances it would make, the one to bring death. Later, it would come to bring life, and then power. The Starheart’s second appearances came in the 1940’s. It came to a man named Amadeus who had lost the will to live after his mother was killed by a psychopath he owed money too, which no penitentiary nor asylum could hold, to get to him. An emerald flame appeared to Amadeus before he committed suicide. He saw the value of life in it, and went on to found the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane. He sent cutthroat Jonah Hex after the maniac to bring him to the Asylum, but he was unsuccessful. The Starheart would appear for the third time in the 1970’s to Alan Scott, a railroad engineer. After a bridge collapsed, a lantern Scott was using was infected by the green flame which gave him instructions to fashion a ring and wear it. Donning the ring, Scott was given a costume similar to Li’s and the same powers, including the wooden weakness. Green Lantern first used his powers to bring the scoundrels responsible for the bridge’s collapse to justice. Scott later retired when Hourman was killed and the government began to crackdown on vigilantes. He relocated to Gotham City where he opened the Gotham Gazette newspaper. More recently, an alien Green Lantern named Abin Sur crashed down onto the Earth. Abin Sur was killed in the impact, and his ring chose Guy Gardner. The Guardians of the Galaxy were ready to strip him of the ring due to Jong Li’s corruption, but Scott’s example convinced them to let him keep the ring. The Flash Jay Garrick was a college football star raised by his grandfather, a war hero from World War I. After inhaling heavy water a metagene was triggered and Garrick developed a connection to the Speed Force. Inspired by his grandfather, he modified a WWI helmet and donned a simple costume with a lightning bolt insignia. Garrick worked as a vigilante in Keystone City, Ohio using “The Flash” as a codename until Hourman’s death. However, his legacy lives on as Barry Allen, another vigilante from Keystone City’s sister-city, Central City, has donned the name “The Flash” in honor of the original, who was his inspiration. Hawkman Paran Katar was a prominent ornithologist and inventor from the planet Thangar. He came to Earth to study our wildlife, specifically the birds. During his time on Earth, he grew to love America for its freedoms which were nonexistent on Thangar. Using ceremonial Thangarian wings and armor, as well as some weapons and gadgets of his own invention, he became a vigilante to protect Midway City, his adopted home. Along with the other members of the Justice Society which he joined, Hawkman retired after Hourman's death, but he was trapped on Earth, his ship having been taken by the government. Making a connection between a Thangarian story of one of their spaceships crashing on Earth centuries before and never returning and an Egyptian one of a hawk-entity landing on Earth and teaching their prince the secret of flight, Katar has retreated to Egypt where he searches for the lost tomb of Prince Khufu. Wonder Woman and Themsycria Hippolyta was the queen of the Amazon Tribe in the days of Ancient Greece. Though not very different from most other tribes and city-states, the Amazonian women ruled over the men. Though great warriors, the Amazonians were more peaceful and wise than their male neighbors, as they were created to be by Artemis, Athena, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Demeter. When Heracles was sent to complete his twelve labors, one of them was to take Hippolyta's golden girdle. Hippolyta welcomed Heracles and his party into their city of Themsycria peacefully. However, Heracles’ cousin, Theseus, became enamored with Hippolyta and abducted her. Though they never actually married, she became his queen in Athens and she fell in love with him too, and they had a son, Hippolytus. The Amazons, led by Hippolyta’s sister, Antiope, attacked Athens to rescue their queen, a conflict which Hippolyta died in, pregnant. Her body was taken back to Themsycria where the goddesses that created the Amazons promised to resurrect her, so long as they did not seek revenge on Theseus. With her people’s blessing, Hippolyta returned to Athens where she found Theseus was already engaged to Phaedra, a princess from Crete. The Amazons attacked at their wedding, but they were held off by Theseus and Achilles. With their deal broken, the Amazons were sent out to live on an island that they could never leave which was hidden from the rest of the world, which they also named Themsycria. On Themsycria, they were given immortality so that they could guard a doorway to the underworld. When a new age of heroes came, (the old one being the time of Heracles, Theseus, etc.) the gods of Olympus decided that they needed champions to represent them. The only civilizations remaining that worshiped the Greek Gods being those of the Amazons and Atlanteans, one was chosen from each, Hippolyta representing the former. As an ambassador of the Greek gods’ to Earth, Hippolyta adopted the name “Wonder Woman” and used blessings and weapons given to her by the goddesses of Olympus. She became a member of the Justice Society, and unlike her other teammates, decided to abide with the government’s wishes after Hourman’s death, until she was pressed to give the identities of her teammates too. When Wonder Woman was informed by the goddesses that a monster had escaped from Themsycria’s door to the Underworld, she decided to return home. While fighting the monster, a woman named Diana Rockwell washed up on the island and died shortly thereafter by helping to defeat this monster. This convinced Hippolyta to remain on Themsycria for the rest of eternity. Though she had renounced love, Diana’s death reminded her of the child that had died in her womb so long ago. The goddesses agreed that if Hippolyta could provide a body, they would give him or her the unborn child’s soul and bless him or her. Hippolyta went to the shores of Themsycria, and molded a daughter out of clay. The goddesses kept their promises by giving her the soul and blessing her. Hippolyta named her Diana. Equinox and Atlantis Atlantis was a Hellenistic nation located on a remote island. Though they came into contact with both the Greeks and Egyptians, they had little to do with the outside world. At the end of the first age of heroes, some Atlanteans became sorcerers due to being both from a genetic offshoot and having that gene triggered by the Lords of Chaos or Order. The Lords’ presence caused the people of Atlantis to rift and their island to sink. Through the combined efforts of both factions of sorcerers, the populace was able to survive and became adapted for life underwater. They banished all sorcerers from their city, with the exception of Arion who had become a Lord of Order himself and therefore a God, to them, and killed all those who were born with their distinguishing traits, blond hair and/or purple eyes. Arion’s son, Glcyar, was chosen by the Greek Gods as their ambassador from Atlantis. Equinox inherited both blond hair and purple eyes, but not magical powers and relied on artifacts and his Atlantean physique to fight crime as part of the Justice Society where he used the codename Power Man. Power Man returned to Atlantis after Hourman’s death because it convinced him of the evils of the surface world. He became starker than before and disappeared shortly after the birth of his daughter, who was left to be raised Arion. The Second Generation Superheroes disappeared from the public eye until recently and the threats they once dealt with were taken up by a Government organization known as Checkmate, which has become lesser and lesser as time goes on. Vigilantes have started to show-up again within the last three years with heroes who have taken up Flash and Green Lantern’s legacies as well as Batman. Bruce Wayne was the sole son of billionaire Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha. After Thomas and Martha were murdered by a mugger, who was never caught, Bruce swore revenge. However, not knowing who was responsible, Bruce’s crusade became against Gotham City’s entire criminal element. Inspired by Zatara, who he knew personally, and Green Lantern who he had once witnessed battling supervillain Icicle, Bruce devoted years of his life to studying and training to become a vigilante. As Batman, Bruce is the first of a new generation, closely followed by a new Flash and a new Green Lantern. He allies himself with Police Lieutenant James Gordon, the only officer who showed up after his parents’ murder who showed compassion, and Harvey Dent, the city’s “white knight” district attorney.